cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/46344922
Does anyone have any recommendations for a good open source journaling app that can rival Day One? I’m looking for something end-to-end encrypted—I know Day One claims to be E2E, but I’m not sure I trust it. I use Joplin for my general note taking, but It’s not really a suitable alternative for journaling.
It’s debatable whether this license is truly open source. I wouldn’t say I particularly go out of my way to be pedantic about it, but somebody might.
Journiv looks pretty cool and i want to try it, but I only use FOSS software whenever possible and Journiv is not under an open source license. The debatably-FOSS license covers the server and prohibits commercial use, which i dont like but maybe could live wirh, but the web client’s license is not debatable: it is clearly not FOSS because it’s proprietary software owned and copyrighted by Swalab Tech and is not licensed under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0.
Here’s an LLM’s summary of why it’s not FOSS: The PolyForm‑Noncommercial 1.0.0 is a non‑commercial license that blocks any commercial use of the code without a separate written agreement. That places it near the bottom of most freedom scales, such as the Open Source Definition or the Free Software Definition. FOSS people would point out that the licence allows use, copy and modification for personal or non‑commercial purposes but disallows commercial deployment or monetised use, so it fails the “freedom” test. The licence also requires contributors to assign all rights to the owner, which removes copyright retention and any freedom to license derivatives. Because the web client is explicitly excluded from the licence and cannot be hosted or redistributed as part of a service, the package is effectively a hybrid licence that is not accepted as open source. On a freedom scale of 0 to 100, it would be roughly 10–20, and FOSS communities would typically call it “not open source” or “proprietary‑style” and advise against using it in a truly FOSS project.
I was going to submit Journiv for review at It’s Really FOSS but one of their conditions to accept a project is that the project claims to be open source - and I can’t find anywhere that Journiv claims to be open source!
In this discussion on Journiv’s github Swalab Tech says:
Thank you!
I didn’t bother looking at the license. I assumed it was openn source.
It’s source available which is good and better than proprietary but as a free alternative is better.
I really like it but that changes things for me, thanks again! Journiv can decide some day to not publish the code and that’s the problem for me.
Fyi, you could consider the app server as source available, but the web client is proprietary and closed and its license probihibits reverse engineering and the like.
That makes it even worse
That is the distinction between Open Source and Free (as in Freedom) Software. I prefer the spanish/latin/french term Libre to refer to what you call “truly open source”.
Open source is indeed frequently used by big and smaller companies to do what I call OpenWashing. Yes the source code is available somewhere but the licence is so restrictive that it doesn’t respect my freedom and thus isn’t Libreware / Free Software.
Also copyleft for the win!